Pushing Redemption
by SpeshaSpak
Summary: Amon survives the boat explosion and is captured by the Equalists; now led by the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant wants to make him pay for his betrayal. Slash, prompt fill.


**Author's Note**: Well Lieumon is taking over my life O.O damn the original formatting got screwed up badly, I'm sorry if some things get cut out or italics are fucked up, but it should be readable lol. Saw this prompt on the korra kink meme and had to fill it:

Noatak washes up on the shore. Heavily injured and helpless but alive. The Equalists find him and bring him back to one of their lairs. Somehow they manage to block his bending - maybe through some kind of a drug or a special collar (mmmm Noatak with a collar) - so that he wouldn't present a threat to them. Lieutenant has survived Amon's blood-bending and is the new leader of the fractured organization. He used to love Amon, worship the ground he walked on, but now that love has turned to raw, unadulterated hate. And now that he has him in his power he intends to make him pay. Bonus points if Noatak doesn't fight back and is oddly attached to his former Lieutenant, catering to his every whim, because this man is all that he has left.

So the idea belongs to them, I'm just putting it into words ;)

Song lyrcis from "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails/Johnny Cash, don't own the song or the Legend of Korra.

_What have I become_

_My sweetest friend_

_Everyone I know goes away_

_In the end_

_And you could have it all_

_My empire of dirt_

_I will let you down_

_I will make you hurt_

**Before.**

He coughs roughly, curling in on himself as his lungs empty themselves of what must be gallons of water that he's swallowed. Everything hurts. He curls his hands in the sand, grabbing handfuls of it like it would help against the agony. He cries out then, a choked sound that hurts his throat, at the injustice of it all. How he shouldn't be alive, how he doesn't want to be alive, how it should have ended, how the life he is left with is ruined utterly.

His brother is dead, and his limp body is behind Noatak's eyelids. He had taken the brunt of the explosion, and the only evidence that he had ever been Tarrlok were the pieces of blue clothing that weren't completely burnt off. He feels sick thinking about it.

_You traitor! I dedicated my life to you!_

_Liu. _He shuts his eyes again, trying to block the voice out, but it repeats over and over again and he covers his ears, feeling unbidden tears trying to come out of his eyes. And it had been so easy, to bloodbend his Lieutenant, so effortless to cast him aside like a toy, rendered useless by its owner. Regret swamps through him, regret for everything he's done that can never be undone.

Shakily Noatak raises a hand into the air, and his shoulder spasms in pain but he raises the hand higher until a tail of water from the sea streams into the air. With a breath, it turns to ice. He wraps both of his burned hands around the icicle, and, with shaking arms, raising the icicle above his heart, squeezing his eyes shut. He would bring justice upon himself, if the spirits would not.

Then there are voices.

Noatak opens his eyes. The distraction breaks his concentration, and what little strength he has left in his arms fades. The icicle drops harmlessly onto the sand.

The voices get louder.

Panicking, he struggles to sit up, to grab the ice, but even the beginning of the action sends unimaginable pain lancing across his whole body. A vague thought crosses his mind, that the pain was not unlike being bloodbended. He wants to chuckle at the irony but cries instead, the tears finally being released and dripping down into his hair.

His grip on reality slackening, it takes him a moment to realize there is someone next to him. Wearing green clothing. People in green clothing with green goggles. Noatak looks up at them slowly, before a force hits him in the head and nothing is left.

* * *

"We found him, sir."

The Lieutenant straightens, crossing his hands behind his back. From his position at the window, he looks out at the churning waters of the Mo Ce Sea. "Didn't expect that so fast," he says absently, but then remembers he is the leader now. Underestimating would only lead him and the Equalists to their graves. He clears his throat. "Alive?"

"Uh, yes sir," the new recruit says haltingly, and the Lieutenant does not need to look at him to know the man is uncertain of him now. Uncertain of the change in the Lieutenant's personality. Before Amon had betrayed them, the Lieutenant had been a good-natured, if gruff, man that liked playing Pai Sho with his fellow Equalists late into the night.

Even though the recruit was new, it did not take him long to realize Amon meant a lot to the Lieutenant, by his off-hand compliments about Amon's plans, and how Amon would lead them all to equality, and how he was always at Amon's side, eagerly awaiting the next mission so he could prove himself. Unfalteringly loyal.

Now the Lieutenant was cold, stoic, no longer the enthusiastic and kind man the recruit had become familiar with, like it had been sucked out of him with Amon's betrayal.

The Lieutenant chuckles, a low sardonic sound, bowing his head for a moment before he turns away from the large window, and walks over to what used to be Amon's desk. There is a black piece of equipment there, a length of thick material with twin metal clasps at each end. The Lieutenant picks it up carefully and gestures for the recruit to take it from him. The recruit swallows, and slowly takes the collar from the older man's grasp.

"Put him in a cell, with this around his neck. Amon will pay for his treachery." A gleam passes through the Lieutenant's blue eyes, and it is so full of hatred the recruit's breath catches. Whatever warmness the Lieutenant used to have, was there no longer.

* * *

**After.**

Noatak comes back to consciousness slowly, his head hurting with a dull throbbing echoing around in his temples. The floor is moving. Confused, he watches it go by under his legs until he realizes he's being dragged by hands. Breath hitching, he looks up and finds his eyes meeting walls of steel bars. _No_.

"No," he says, but his voice makes no noise. He coughs and then yells, "No!" and begins thrashing against the hands that hold his arms behind his back. It sends pain spiraling through him but he has to get away, he has to because he'd much rather die than spend a lifetime in prison.

The hands around his arms tighten painfully, and he's still being pulled mercilessly to the cell that has already been reserved for him. "NO!" There's a puddle of water on the ground nearby from a leaking pipe, and ruthlessly he bends it into a whip and smacks it behind him. The hands let go with a shout of pain.

"Damn it!"

Free now, Noatak falls forward and manages to get on his knees before what must be three sets of hands force him roughly onto his back. His head smacks against cold concrete and he sees stars. "Put it on him, now!"

When the stars fade he sees an Equalist leaning over him, the green goggled eyes unforgiving as something is wrapped around his neck. With a faint _zing_ sound, the ends snap together at his throat. Horrifyingly, he feels something painfully _cut_ from him, something _leave _like it had never been there in the first place. "W-what is this?"

He pulls on the collar with his hands, but it's impossible to break the clasps apart. He tries to mentally bloodblend the man leaning over him, but nothing happens.

The Equalist laughs in his face. "Well, let's just say there won't be any more stunts like the one you just pulled."

And Noatak remembers then. Remembers the new collar designed by Sato they had yet to try out. The ends were bonded to the skin over the throat chakra, and through the physic pathways sent shock pulses to the head chakra, damaging the source of a person's bending over time. While on, it would rend a bender unable to use their ability, and the longer it was on, the more damage the chakra took, until the bending connection was completely severed.

In shock, he doesn't respond when his arms are wrenched back again and he's drug through the prison, to the very last cell. The Equalists throw him inside and the clang of the metal bars slamming shut reverberates in his brain, seeming to whisper _you traitor _into his ears.

* * *

**After.**

The Lieutenant whistles as he strolls down the prison block, hands behind his back. The prisoners glare, but turn their heads because they realize it's hopeless to be angry. The Lieutenant loves that look. The moment they discover no hope is left for them, with their bending taken and locked up in an underground prison, far from their families. Hiroshi Sato was dead, but it was apparent Amon intended to make good use of the collars, as the facility had received a shipment of them, mass produced, a day after his betrayal. The Lieutenant had wasted no time putting them to good use, and now every prisoner wore a black collar around their neck, slowly and systematically cutting their bending away.

The collars were impossible to remove without a powerful burst of electricity, the only thing that would unbond the clasps from the skin. It was extremely difficult to do this, because the shock would need to be exactly precise. If even a millimeter off, the shock would instead go through the victim's body. This made it so the only practical way to remove it was by a Kali stick.

The Lieutenant whistles out a last note, before taking out his keys and opening the last cell on the block, eyes on the man inside, sleeping in a fetal position on the small bed that was one of the only afforded luxuries of the cells, the other of course, being the toilet. Closing the cell, he gazes down at the former leader of the Revolution, at his naked face, for the first time.

The pale skin is impossibly young, seemingly untouched by wrinkles or the decay of time. His features are sharp, smart, much like the mask. His lips are full, and his thick dark hair is sprawled around his head. The Lieutenant's hate grows by the second, the more of it he takes in. Irrefutable proof that everything Amon had been was a lie. Amon, dressed only in plain black pants, his torso bare for the Lieutenant to let his eyes run over the burns now arcing up his skin.

The backs of his hands are scorched, painful black and red skin. Another burn twirls up around his neck like a dragon's tail, cutting up the side across his ear which is burned black at the edges. A healer had confirmed he had two broken ribs, a fractured ankle and multiple severe sprains in his fingers, wrists, and arms. Those were now wrapped, and salve applied to the burns; minimal medical attention was all he deserved. The angry red of the burns on his body had faded, but would scar with time.

The Lieutenant was told that this was most likely the results of being caught in an explosion of some kind.

He had laughed.

He walks over the bed and kicks Amon roughly in his upper leg. "Get up."

Amon flinches, slowly blinking open his eyes and looking around like he's forgotten where he was, or hopeful that it had all been a dream. Slowly he raises his eyes to look up at the Lieutenant. He's obviously of Water Tribe descent. Everything Amon had ever told him was a lie. Everything the Lieutenant had trusted in was a lie. Shock comes over Amon's face. "Liu," he chokes out. "You're alive. You're—"

"Shut up!" The Lieutenant shouts, clenching his fists. Amon has flinty blue eyes that reveal nothing, just like his mask.

Amon jumps at the shout, blinking again, but he shuts his mouth. The same look that the other Equalists get when they realize how much the Lieutenant has changed, comes over his face. More than anything right now, The Lieutenant hates that look and wants it gone.

He roughly grabs the younger man and lifts him off the bed, scrambling both of them forwards until Amon's back collides painfully against the wall and Amon's trying to push him away with his scorched hands, his eyes getting wild, but the Lieutenant stabs two fingers into each of his arms, right at the points below the elbow.

The arms fall, limp, at Amon's sides.

"Why?"

Amon raises his pale eyes slowly to the Lieutenant's own but doesn't say anything. He's trembling, from pain or fear but probably both.

The Lieutenant wraps a hand around his throat and squeezes. "I asked you a question, _Amon_," he says his name like it's a joke. "You will answer it."

"What do...you want to...know?" Amon asks, his face turning red as his breathing is painfully constricted.

"I want to why you betrayed me," the Lieutenant hisses, his face a mere inch away from Amon's. The water bender's eyes are dilated, the black taking up a good portion of his iris. He doesn't say anything, but looks over the Lieutenant's shoulder, looking utterly pathetic with his hair falling into his eyes, and completely at the Lieutenant's mercy.

The Lieutenant snarls in disgust before lifting him away from the wall and letting him drop onto the floor. Amon leans over himself on his hands and knees, coughing. The Lieutenant watches him a moment, and can't be surprised at the stirring in his groin. He has always been attracted to Amon, and had used to fantasize what it would be like to have him under him. Those thoughts used to make him feel guilty afterwards.

But not anymore.

"Get on your back," he commands when Amon finishes coughing.

"W-what?"

"Now!" He presses his boot into the small of the younger man's back threateningly. But Amon complies rather quickly, turning until he's looking up at the Lieutenant, wary. The cold floor seeps into his skin and his wrist spasms as one of his arms comes back to life, but he stays there.

The pants have ridden low on Amon's hips, a little too big now with the weight he has lossed and his hipbones jut out just a little. The Lieutenant feels something predatory worm into his brain. The need to make Amon pay for what he's done. The need to take something away from him, in return from what Amon has taken from him.

Amon watches him as he kneels between his legs, and begins undoing the loose ties of his pants. But he doesn't say anything, or move even at all. Just watches with an unreadable expression, his stony eyes blank. The only reaction the Lieutenant gets is when he pulls the pants off his legs, in the form of a long sigh that sounds like disappointment.

"You stay there," the Lieutenant says to Amon as he gets up again to take off his own Equalist uniform. He thinks he can hear Amon chuckle, but the man's face looks as blank as ever. The cell is isolated from the others, so neither of them have to worry about the other prisoners watching, not that the Lieutenant would care at this point.

He strips off his shoulder and knee pads, and then his coat and newly replaced goggles, until he's left in his grey underclothes, which he takes off as well, piling them in the corner on top of Amon's discarded pants.

With cold calculation, he kneels back down on the cold floor and pushes Amon's unresisting legs to his chest, until his knees are against his ears. Amon's blue eyes look into his own, equal parts anger and resignation for what's about to happen.

"You are going to pay for your treachery, Noatak," he says to him, and Amon's eyes widen a little at the sound of his name dropping from the Lieutenant's lips, before he clenches them shut in pain when the Lieutenant thrusts inside. "Ah!" But he can't make himself move to stop his Lieutenant, because he deserves it. He deserves everything.

The Lieutenant watches Amon's lips fold into a thin line as he pulls out and pushes back in, the unlubricated friction nearly overwhelming. One of the wraps on Amon's ankle comes undone and brushes against the Lieutenant's shoulder and for some reason the sensation, along with Amon's face screwing up in agony, sends a whole new shot of lust through him.

He leans back, wrapping his hands around Amon's hips, and begins thrusting in earnest, hungrily eating up every reaction from the man beneath him—how Amon's blue eyes open, watching the ceiling, how he arches his back a little, how he's struggling not to make any noise, how his arms are coming back to life so his hands can scrabble against the floor, how the red flush of his face spreads down to his neck, how he sweats and his hair sticks to his forehead and jaw.

It feels too good, to have Amon underneath him, vulnerable, helpless, to make him pay for his lies. The old Lieutenant would be in shock at his actions, but the new, improved Lieutenant can only feel righteous pleasure at what he's doing.

The friction lessens, a little, and he changes the angle. A shocked groan escapes Amon's lips, his chest seizing as the Lieutenant rubs against something that sends shockwaves of pleasure through him, drowning out the pain. "Liu...," Amon gasps, as another thrust against that same area makes him harden fully. Vastly different thoughts swirl around in his head, how he shouldn't enjoy this, but maybe he should, because he's always wanted this, how he can't bring himself to feel humiliated like he should, because he can't—

The Lieutenant watches a tear fall from Amon's left eye before the next thrust makes him arch in pleasure and a nearsob erupts from his mouth. "Liu!" and then "Liu, I'm sorry," as a whisper under a breath. The Lieutenant's hardened heart doesn't feel the guilt, but rather the soaring pride at the admission. Amon was sorry, but he would not be forgiven.

Amon reaches up, wrapping his arms around the Lieutenant's neck to pull him down into a rough kiss. The Lieutenant groans into Amon's mouth, his fingers burying themselves into the younger man's thick hair as he bites his lips and holds him down.

When Amon comes, the Lieutenant swallows the noise he makes.

* * *

**Now.**

"This is ready to come off," the Lieutenant says, fingers running over the black collar around Noatak's neck. "Your bending should be completely removed by now."

Noatak swallows, but can't help the relief that comes unbidden. Now, he would no longer have to deal with the evil inside him, no longer have to feel disgust towards himself. He sits on the bed, in what used to be his chambers, long ago, but now belong to the Lieutenant. The older man stands in front of him, and reaches down a Kali stick to where the metal clasps are magnetized together.

There is a spark of blue and the clasps fall apart. Noatak lets out the breath he had been holding and takes it off his neck, and feels his head chakra open up once more, no longer under attack by the electricical pulses from the collar. There is a red square on his neck from where the metal had bonded, the evidence of being equalized. He can feel that his bending is gone, cut away with nothing left behind, a missing space that would never be filled.

"Get me some tea."

"Yes Liu," Noatak says automatically, rising from the bed.

The Lieutenant sits in his, _his _chair now, and watches Noatak walk into the adjoined kitchen, taking out the tea cups and the tray before carefully making the Oolong tea the Lieutenant preferred.

After putting Noatak into his place, the Lieutenant had him removed from the cell, bathed and clothed. Noatak would now serve him as a personal assistant. Noatak had not resisted, and had since followed his every request. The Lieutenant knew he was all the younger man had left in the world, and so had immeasurable power over Noatak—coupled with the fact that the Lieutenant was now head of the Anti-Bending movement, which was back on track of ridding the world of bending.

Benders were captured, collared and kept in confinement until the head chakra was sufficiently damaged, and then released as evidence—that even though Amon's bloodbending technique was no longer an option—that the Equalists were still perfectly capable of reaching their ultimate goal. Eventually, Korra would be defeated, and everyone would be equal.

A few minutes later, Noatak sets down the ornate tray on his desk before saying, "Do I really need to wear this?" He pulls the Water Tribe tunic away from his body, face looking uncomfortable.

The Lieutenant takes a sip of tea, blue eyes looking at the younger man, dressed in fur trimmed Water Tribe garb, his hair pulled back. "Winter is coming," he says, crossing his leg over the other. "You'll wear what I want you to wear."

Noatak bows his head, before looking up with hopeful eyes. "Can we at least go to a shop and find some better Mukluks?"

"You make good tea," the Lieutenant says, avoiding the question, but answering it all at the same time.

"Thanks Liu," Noatak says and the Lieutenant looks up at him. There is a certain softness in his eyes that lets the Lieutenant know he is thanking him for far more than a pair of boots.

Noatak takes a cup of tea off the tray and sits partly on the Lieutenant's desk, in the empty space between schematics and the container of pens, crossing his legging-clad legs. He looks expectant, something that's becoming more and more familiar to the Lieutenant, so he finishes the last sip of tea and stands. Noatak kisses him, roughly, scraping his nails through his hair and over his scalp. The papers flutter onto the floor as the Lieutenant pushes him back further onto the desk.

Noatak pulls away, already breathing hard. "I think I have an answer."

"To what?" The Lieutenant questions as he pulls apart the ties of Noatak's tunic, nearly destroying the garment all together. He buries his face into the younger man's neck, biting down on the slope of shoulder.

"Why I betrayed you," Noatak says. The tunic comes open and off and the Lieutenant begins pulling down his leggings. "It's that I didn't trust anyone enough, didn't trust you enough, to tell them the truth. I was ashamed of it." The leggings fall on the floor soundlessly and Noatak wraps his legs around the Lieutenant's waist, using his hands to reach down and pull off the older man's pants. "I didn't want anyone to know that I was a bender, that I was cursed. I thought it would undermine everything we were trying to accomplish, that they wouldn't take me seriously because I was a hypocrite." Noatak lets out a long sigh and the Lieutenant steps out of his pants.

"I should've let you be in charge from the very beginning, Liu. I should've told you what I was. I was wrong." Noatak leans back on his hands, watches the Lieutenant pour oil onto his fingers, and his breath catches when a finger is pushed inside him, but he goes on, "Liu, I know sorrys will never fix anything, so I won't say them. I just...I just want you to accept me as I am. No one ever has, and that's why all this happened, that's why I made up someone else."

The Lieutenant pushes in the second finger, leans forward to kiss him, not gentle—it would never be gentle—and it didn't have to be. "Everything is as it should be, now."

Noatak smiles against his lips, and when the Lieutenant removes his fingers, positions the younger man's thighs around his waist, and enters him, Noatak says, "I love you," for the first time in his life, the words unfamiliar on his tongue.

It would never be enough. It didn't need to be.

_If I could start again_

_A million miles away_

_I would keep myself_

_I would find a way_


End file.
